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Crime IOS Iphone Medicine Software Apple

Apple Health Data Is Being Used As Evidence In a Rape and Murder Investigation (vice.com) 185

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Hussein K., an Afghan refugee in Freiburg, has been on trial since September for allegedly raping and murdering a student in Freiburg, and disposing of her body in a river. But many of the details of the trial have been hazy -- no one can agree on his real age, and most notably, there's a mysterious chunk of time missing from the geodata and surveillance video analysis of his whereabouts at the time of the crime. He refused to give authorities the passcode to his iPhone, but investigators hired a Munich company (which one is not publicly known) to gain access to his device, according to German news outlet Welt. They searched through Apple's Health app, which was added to all iPhones with the release of iOS 8 in 2014, and were able to gain more data about what he was doing that day. The app records how many steps he took and what kind of activity he was doing throughout that day. The app recorded a portion of his activity as "climbing stairs," which authorities were able to correlate with the time he would have dragged his victim down the river embankment, and then climbed back up. Freiburg police sent an investigator to the scene to replicate his movements, and sure enough, his Health app activity correlated with what was recorded on the defendant's phone.
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Apple Health Data Is Being Used As Evidence In a Rape and Murder Investigation

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  • Note to self ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pz ( 113803 ) on Thursday January 11, 2018 @05:23PM (#55911273) Journal

    ... do not carry phone when performing criminal acts.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Carewolf ( 581105 )

      ... do not carry phone when performing criminal acts.

      Maybe it would be better for everybody if you would just abstain from committing murder?

      • by pz ( 113803 ) on Thursday January 11, 2018 @05:32PM (#55911337) Journal

        ... do not carry phone when performing criminal acts.

        Maybe it would be better for everybody if you would just abstain from committing murder?

        Oh, right. That's probably a better idea.

        • Exactly, hire someone to do it for you. Much less messy!
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            Have someone else commit rape and murder for you, kind of makes no sense. The rape bit was the intent, the murder bit was to get away with rape ie to the individual other people are just disposable, no value beyond how they can be used and abused. Forget phone stuff, how about testing for psychopathy before they are let into the country. Trial and prosecution well and good but still a person horribly abused and they killed for convenience, if the attacker had been tested before being let into the country an

            • Tell us, how exactly does one go about 'testing for psychopathy' in a reliable manner? Or do you propose just turning refugees away if they fail a psychiatric evaluation, even if there is no evidence of any criminal history?

        • by uncqual ( 836337 )

          That's not an option for Dexter.

      • you assumed murder, but simply speeding on the motorway is a criminal act that your phone (if GPS is on) certainly can tattle on you for.

      • But then how do you keep your rape victims from reporting you?

        • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

          by Khyber ( 864651 )

          Dick in the mouth to keep them from talking always worked for me! Caveat: You need at least 8 inches of cock for this to work.

      • I would if people would stop needing it!
    • ... do not carry phone when performing criminal acts.

      That seems like quite an inconvenience.

      Maybe I'll get a burner phone so I can still catch some Pokemon while I'm out murdering.

    • Note to self:

      First stop storing notes to self on phones.

    • ... do not carry phone when performing criminal acts.

      Or when NOT performing criminal acts - when somebody ELSE performs a criminal act that confused police might try to pin on you.

      Gosh: That's all the time, isn't it?

    • .. do not carry phone when performing criminal acts.

      The way things are going, not having your phone on and with you will become suspicious behavior, if not presumption of guilt.

    • by ark1 ( 873448 )
      carry someone's else phone.
    • by 3vi1 ( 544505 )

      But then how are you going to live-tweet it?

  • by MalachiK ( 1944624 ) on Thursday January 11, 2018 @05:29PM (#55911311)
    I think we need to accept that, whether we like it or not, there's always going to be some data about what you are doing recorded somewhere. If you're carrying around a computer with GPS and an accelerometer that constantly reports back to who Google or Apple or whatever apps you have installed, you shouldn't be too surprised when someone with enough resources is able to put together a pretty good picture of what you've been up to.
    • Your health data is not reported back to Apple. It's stored on your phone. And many people interested in their health _want it_ to be stored on their phone.
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Re "whether we like it or not, there's always going to be some data about what you are doing recorded somewhere."
      Not so much if a person did not carry an Apple, Google product.
      Then it is only nation wide CCTV for face, gait, car drivers face, passengers face, license plates....
    • by lucm ( 889690 )

      you shouldn't be too surprised when someone with enough resources is able to put together a pretty good picture of what you've been up to.

      This is scary.

      I'm old enough to have lived in a time when prank calls were common because there was no caller id. Now I have to leave my phone home when I go see my drug dealer in case the cops are using a stingray to identify his clients. I wonder how bad it will get in 100 or 2000 years.

    • by sad_ ( 7868 )

      don't know about an iphone, but you can turn all that tracking stuff off.
      i only turn all those things on when i go jogging or need active gps guidance.

  • I do not know what is /s

  • by AndyKron ( 937105 )
    Not evidence!
  • ... investigators hired a Munich company (which one is not publicly known) to gain access to his device...

    I thought it was not possible to get into an iPhone without having a back door present?

    • Using Google Translate on TFA, it appears that the phone was a 4S. It's known to be possible to break into an iPhone older than 5S, when Apple introduced the Secure Enclave.

      Moral: If you're going to commit a heinous crime, and carry an iPhone while doing so, make sure it's a 5 or 5C or earlier, so the prosecution can gather more evidence. (I'm not on the side of people who commit heinous crimes, like rape and murder.)

  • If you are murdering someone, don't bring your phone or smart watch with you.

  • Apple, now with iSnitch technology:

    It sees you when you're sleeping
    It knows when you're awake
    It knows if you've been bad or good
    So be good for goodness sake!

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